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Friday, May 20, 2011

So, this is it, huh? The last day before “the rapture” and “judgment day”. Well, it may be the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.

Yeah, that R.E.M. song (in the video above) has been stuck in my head for about a week—or the better part of one, anyway—as the media has paid more and more attention to a crackpot predicting the end of the world. Even TVNZ’s Close Up devoted segments on two consecutive nights to all this. Mind you, they also devoted a segment to the NZ release of KFC’s “Double Down,” an event that actually may be a sign of the apocalypse.

As I said the first time I talked bout this, I absolutely do NOT believe in “end times”, “the rapture” or “judgment day” (and I never have). But my contempt is reserved for the snake oil salesman like the crackpot behind all this, people who prey on the gullible and deeply religious for—well, what, exactly? I’m sure he’s made bucketloads of money out of this, but I’m guessing the real motivation was to be a worldwide phenomenon before he dies. Not many people who haven’t actually done anything get this much attention, and seldom is a lunatic idea treated with such seriousness by the mainstream newsmedia—well, not since that whole “birther” nonsense was in the US.

So today, May 20, is a day like any other. And so, too, will tomorrow be.